This is the first year I have cancelled all my subs. Used to be a TPB regular around the time it took off. Years later I tried to go legit and have had subs with all the major streamers (netflix, disney, amazon etc) But the way you get squeezed year on year for what was standard before e.g. 4K or no ads to be gradually offered worse terms and degraded output quality just bites after a while. I can't justify spending €20-30 per month on what isn't the best quality available for the content on offer.
Yeah all the streaming services have gotten so bad and they are adding ads and they are lowering quality and they are getting too expensive. Arghgg I say
Plus I've found "legit" to be a moving goal post. One day a show is on one platform, the next it's on another, or it becomes unavailable except for [insert random foreign country here]. Even HD is a ripoff sometimes when half the episode comes in all compressed looking. They'll blame my bandwidth except I have no problem streaming an episode without adaptive compression over Bittorrent.
People can say what they want about piracy, but it continues to be what I consider a necessity against culturally important media being further tainted by rent seekers looking to make another buck in any way they can.